Exorcist author: Abortion is ‘demonic’

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 31, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Author William Peter Blatty has frightened millions of people around the world with visions of the devil living inside a young woman in his best-selling novel The Exorcist. But this week he said that there is something else just as frightening and "demonic" as possession - the act of destroying a life within his mother.

Zak asked about Blatty's canonical lawsuit against Georgetown University. Blatty, a 1950 alumnus of the University, said the school's decision to invite the strongly pro-abortion HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius as commencement speaker last May was “the last straw,” triggering him to file suit on behalf of more than 1,000 others.

In his book Blatty wrote about projectile vomiting, disintegrating flesh, and spinning heads – but it's abortion that he can't get out of his mind.

Before crafting the HHS mandate – which forces Christian institutions, like Georgetown, to provide abortion-inducing drugs and sterilizations to their employees without a co-pay – Kathleen Sebelius was late-term abortionist George Tiller's advocate in the state of Kansas.

Shortly after filing his canonical suit, Blatty expressed his dismay at the invitation to Sebelius, telling the media, "It grieves me deeply that my beloved alma mater is failing so scandalously in its debt both to the Church and to the militant Jesuits still buried there who gave it their everything; who made it so special for so long. It grieves me that Georgetown University today almost seems to take pride in insulting the Church and offending the faithful.”

The archdiocese of Washington's official newspaper, the Catholic Standard, agreed, writing, “One can only wonder how the selection of Secretary Sebelius for such a prominent role as a featured speaker can be reconciled with the stated Catholic mission and identity of Georgetown University. Secretary Sebelius' vision on what constitutes faith-based institutions presents the most direct challenge to religious freedom in recent history.”

Blatty believes a canonical court may be the cure. “If you truly love someone that you think needs to be in rehab, you’ll do everything you possibly can to get them into rehab,” Blatty told Zak.

Georgetown President John J. DiGoia said offering Sebelius the university as a forum “should not be viewed as an endorsement of her views.”

But Blatty said the university had failed “for more than two decades to comply with the requirements of Ex corde Ecclesiae,” the 23-year-old document governing how institutions of higher learning must behave in accordance with their Catholic identity. Blatty’s counsel, Manuel Miranda, said he had documented “over 100 scandals in the most recent years alone.”

Blatty hopes his work will cause the university to turn back to the heart of the church. At age 85, some 40 years after writing the screen adaptation of his novel about possession, Blatty would like to be through fighting the devil.